2010 Crozes-Hermitage, Domaine du Colombier

The vines for this wine are located around the village of Mercurol, just as it starts its modest ascent towards the hill of Hermitage itself. Matured 2/3 in demi-muid and 1/3 in cuve, this is an attractive wine its notes of violet and black cherry tempered by fine, chalky tannins.Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer, February 2012

The Viale brothers are both well over six and a half feet tall, so tasting with tous les deux is both a rare honour and quite daunting one. Both Florent and David are extremely impressed with the quality of 2010 as a vintage; they advise, somewhat harshly in my book, that the 2009s were ‘sugary and commercial’ but that 2010 is a vintage that is both precise and complex. It is hard, for a number of reasons, to disagree.